Step Off Teaching Plan

PURPOSE - This study will teach students how to enlarge their boundaries. To be more than they are and to dream bigger than they’ve dreamt. It will stretch them, make them uncomfortable, take them places they’ve never been. But in the end they will be more Extreme for Jesus than they were when they started.

KEY VERSE - Isaiah 54:2 – “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtain wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.”

Before you start - Each student will need a copy of Step Off and a journal. They will divide themselves into groups of three or four. This will be their core group for the entire book. They will discuss the exercise with each other as they go. They will exchange home phones, e-mail etc. and rely on each other for a month. The students will govern themselves, try not to get involved too much in these small groups. Let them learn from and grow with one another.

EXERCISES -

Change habits

Build altars

Create Symbols

Media Fast

Bible Surfing

½ day getaway

Community Involvement

Friendventory

Give away valuables

Brainstorm

Have fun

Find something in nature to praise God

Learn the janitor’s name

Giveaway 3 messages, 3 compliments, 3 dollars

To Do List – Dreams

Foot Washing

Extreme OUTLINES (6 weeks worth)

Week One - Got Symbols?

This week the class will build a symbol that will signify their commitment to whatever they choose. (Bible Study, Prayer, Reaching out to others, God’s love)

NEEDS: Chicken Wire, Rocks, Papermache paste, newspapers, glue, wood. All the ingredients for a good altar.

Sermon Topic - Altars and symbols

  1. God asks for altars and symbols

Verses: Numbers 15:37 – 40

Gen 8: 20-21

Gen 9: 8-17

  1. What are some of today’s symbols?
  1. The swoosh, music, swastika, the cross, five circle of the Olympics, American flag.
  2. Discuss what these symbols mean them. What they represent. How they make them feel. Which ones are good? Which ones are bad?
  3. Discuss the values of having symbols.

They remind you what you shouldn’t forget.

  1. Why does God call for symbols? (So we will remember Him and what He has done)
  1. What are some of the symbols God’s people have had to remember Him?
  2. Do you have any of your own? Jewelry, tattoos, stickers?
  3. Look at how different men of scripture used names of God to remember Him.
  1. Build your symbol together. Let the kids decide what it should represent to the group.

Multi-Media – show commercials all the kids will know. “Boing!” Nike commercials. Talk about street signs. What do they symbolize? Money, what does it symbolize? Music, play songs that have dances that the kids would know.

WEEK TWO - MEDIA FAST

This week the class will discuss the influence of media in our lives. They will try to predict what life will be like without it for the next month.

NEEDS: TV that will show static or a blue screen, journals for all the kids.

  1. Samson’s Story – He gave his power away to a woman. Verse: Judges 16:1-22
  1. What or who do we give our power away to?
  2. How did he conform to the world? Romans 12:2 – do not be conformed to this world
  1. How does Media influence your life?
  1. Discuss with the large group.
  2. Have students do some creative writing in their journals, talking about how it felt to go all day Saturday without media. It can be prose, poetry, sound like fiction, whatever they want. Encourage them to be creative and not afraid to express their emotions. They will need to deal with them as the month goes on. They will have to be honest with themselves and with each other if they really are devoted to being Extreme in their faith. Later they will use these entries for discussion in their small groups.

C. Talk a bit about how they should rely on one another to make it through. How they need to be honest and not afraid to share. Have them make a commitment in their journals to this process with all it’s fears, dangers and unknowns. Dare then to Step Off into something they don’t even really know. Think Survivor. Think Boot Camp.

WEEK THREE – Idolatry

This week the students will learn about idolatry. That whatever they can’t give up possesses them. They will dare themselves to make a stand for Christ and to give up whatever may entangle them in the world.

NEEDS

A. Find out what is valuable to them.

  1. Ask them what they have that is valuable. What do they treasure? What is most important to them? What would they hate to lose?
  2. Ask them to write in their journal 5 things that they would hate to lose. (later that week they will be asked to giveaway something they love in the Step Off chapter 13)

B. Teaching on where your treasures are that’s where your heart is.

Verses: Luke 12: 15 Beware of covetousness.

Matthew 6:19-24 – do not store up treasures on earth

  1. Action points

1. Have them do something that would show them how hard it is to accomplish a task while you are holding on to something you covet. Improv?

WEEK FOUR – Sex Symbols.

NEEDS – beads, wire, things to make bracelets out of. Each student will make a bracelet that will symbolize their commitment to purity. Can use rope, rubber bands, wire, etc. It doesn’t have to be beautiful.

Verse: Eph 5:3 But among you there must not even be a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of any greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.

  1. Sex and the media.
  1. How does the media portray sex.
  2. Who are some sex symbols and why?
  3. Pornography – what does it do to your perception of sex, of women, of relationships? Why is it so addictive?
  4. What about chick flicks? No sex, but can they damage your idea of relationships? Make you dream of Mr. perfect all day long. Could they be female porn?
  1. Sex as God defines it. Between married men and women only. “What IS a hint of sexual immorality?
  1. Just sleeping together.
  2. Parking?
  3. Kissing heavy in public.
  4. Showing too much skin?

C. Your commitment to do it God’s way.

WEEK FIVE – End of the Media Fast

This will be their first weekend with media.

Needs: video tapes of the news, MTV, Buffy, etc.

TV and VCR.

  1. End of the Fast
  1. How do you feel? Talk about what you went through. Read some of your journals to the group.
  2. How did it feel to see TV again? How much did you watch?
  1. Reclamation
  1. Show video clip of the news. Discuss how that makes them feel now. How does it influence them.
  2. Show video clip of MTV. What influence does it have? How does it make them feel now they’ve been away from it for so long.
  3. Show video clip of Buffy or Charmed. Discuss.

C. End in small groups talking about their thoughts on media influence.

WEEK SIX – Attitude Check.

NEEDS – TV/VCR, movie clips of (midgets of wizard of oz, something sad, car wreck)

Have different kinds of music (limp biskit, POD,etc.)

A. Show clips and play music. After each discuss how it makes them feel. What is their attitude?

C.Attitude –

Ask someone to stand up on a chair and cluck like a chicken. Everyone laughs at the kid that does it.

Now offer them $200 bucks to stand up on the chair. (can’t be the same guy) Watch how their focus changes. They all volunteer now.

After they do it give them $200 in monopoly money. Watch how their attitude changes again. It’s was the same thing but each time their attitude changed based on circumstance. Should it have?

  1. Talk about the verse -

Philp 4:8 - whatever is true…. We should focus on the good and our attitude will be in God’s control.

WEEK SEVEN – Stinky Feet.

Verse: Matthew 20:16 – So the last will be first and the first will be last.

Needs: Fixins for a party. Let the celebrate the end of their hardest 30 days.

  1. Foot Washing – Discuss how it was to wash each others feet. (see days 26/27) Who was it harder for the giver or the receiver?
  2. Talk about Jesus washing the feet of disciples. Why did he do it? How do you think they felt? John 13:1-17.
  3. The Challenge. If you quit now you let all you’ve done die. This can be a way of life that will radically alter your world. Are you willing to keep on? Are you ready to bring others on? Show them the hardest 30 days?
  4. The Party. Let them have a party for making it through. Either today or on another night. Food. Music. Games. Whatever. Let them celebrate the fact that they made it through the hardest 30 days of their life.